Well, I went with the landscapers who suggested bringing in topsoil. They started at 16 cubic yards and were initially confident they could get it all leveled in 16-24 cubic yards total. Turned out to be way too little, as I had originally feared, but I trusted their professional opinion. To their credit, they did come back a few days later and did most of the remainder of the grading by excavating a bit on the high side, and brought more topsoil in for the fine grading. So in the end, I got a hybrid job. I'm happy with it. Just framed it with my OSB boards today. Going 30'x60' for the first time this year, so that should be fun.
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I was originally planning the job for early fall, which would have been good seeding time, but got the job done a bit late. So I'm either going to dormant seed just before putting the liner down in a few weeks, or wait till spring to loosen the soil the bit and then seed. Either way, germinating in spring vs early fall.
If I had to do the grading job again, I would trust my own rough measurements a bit more, and I might get the nerve up to rent a loader/bobcat myself if I was just adding soil. If I decided excavating was needed, as it was in this case, I'd probably still have someone else do it.